A Journal: Chapter 7

April 22, 1998  *****************************************

. . . . . Back again. I'm about to give up on those notes I've been making; I just don't seem to feel inspired, can't actually claim to feel that way now. Maybe bored and foolish would be apropos, 'cause I remember the fool in Proverbs who tells everything (and can really relate to that [again]). Anyway, i guess the truth of the matter is I'm depressed and the Bible is often an escape (into reality i like to say).

. . . . . I still haven't posted this site on any search engines, in fact I haven't even gone to the In Touch site to let Charles Stanley know I've dissed him, actually kind of figure he wasn't really serious about that sermon ya know, and might lighten the tone some before I give him the opportunity for rebuttal. The main reason I thought of not posting to search engines is that every time I go to a page  I find mistakes I need to clean up like wrong sizings on the maneuvering buttons and bad links and typos and such. Not much editing.

          Here are a few verses i found interesting (and have i mentioned the old Chinese curse 'May you live in interesting times.'?):

(Matthew 3:7-10 KJV [red letters by me]) But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
. . . . . These folks were coming out for John's baptism, you might recall. John was kind of acknowledged as a prophet of God, and the "religious" people of his day came out to see (and [try to] hear) him, and I got little doubt they didn't like what he had to say to them. My Companion Bible says 'the wrath to come' references Malachi 4:1, and that "the coming of Messiah was always connected to judgment; which would have come to pass had the nation repented". I think the last line of my Sunday school lesson indicates, like even the "religious" people of today say, that his return still is connected to judgment (though "they" maintain it's a judgment of "the lost"). What a lot of people apparently don't realize is that these generations of today might need to repent, to turn away from our civilization's rule of ordinary mind or we might see the fiery judgment for which God has told us to watch. The 'fruit' references can only mean works (I just added verse 8 to my works notes), both spiritual fruit (the result of working on character instead of feeding ego) and physical works which come from the 'moral choices' God considers. By the way, check this quote from John Updike's "Toward the End of Time": "Protestantism . . . after fifteen centuries at last took up in earnest (Paul)'s desperate, anti-social principle that a man is justified by faith and not the works of the law." Perhaps it was a recognition of Judeo-Christianity's anti-social bias which led the fathers of the kountry to protect mankind's innate covetousness by institutionalizing the separation of church and state.

. . . . . Man's laws, just like man's church doctrine, of course, are predicated (in the western world of postmodernism especially) on what we euphemistically term 'free enterprise', which as I've said elsewhere in these pages, simply is the freedom to stab your neighbor in the back, a strikingly apt metaphor for what I've called spiritual violence, since the violence is only economic.

April 25  ********************************

. . . . . Before I continue (or start) my (would-be) exegesis of Psalm 94 let me mention in the context of noteworthiness of names that for the upmteenth time I opened el Bible today to the start of the gospel of John; the first verse I looked at was four: "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." Perhaps the reason(s) which seemingly compelled me to tell someone that my mom indicated to me, toward the end of her sojourn here on earth, my biological father's last name was Light make me want to make that same statement here. Don't ask me what the reason might have been, 'cause i don't know. 

          Interestingly, when I looked up the definition of the Greek in Strong's Concordance I inadvertently(?) went first to reference number 4457 (the Greek for 'blindness or hardness') which comes from 4456 which translates 'stone' (my middle name). At any rate, the Greek word phos (reference number 5457) translated as 'fire' or 'light', making me wonder again about this mystery concerning judgment day.

(Psalm 94:7 KJV) Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.
. . . . . "More than heart could wish" makes me think of Jesus saying repent (implying to think and act differently; remember He wanted us to change it all, to help effect God's will on earth as it is in heaven and i think no one would dispute the fact that children don't die of hunger in heaven) and "Give us this day our daily bread" referencing (I've thought for decades) Proverbs 20:13: "Open thine eyes and thou shalt be satisfied with bread." And ain't it beyond grief to think that He might have been using this to justify his (worldly) poverty?

(Psa 92:7 KJV) When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:
. . . . . "Nuthin' you can say that hasn't been said" the Beatles sang, and "nothing new under the sun" the preacher wrote in Ecclesiastes.

(Isa 23:18 KJV) And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.
. . . . . The burden of Amerika. Seems to me this echoes the thrust of my message, that we shouldn't treasure stuff or horde it but just use it (and what a line:) "to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing."

(Isa 58:10 KJV) And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:
. . . . . These chapters through here are, I think I've written before, just immense. "Draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul." That's what I think God wants us to do, together, and like I just wrote somewhere, it might make a big difference to a lot of people, and I ain't talking about a day or two here on earth (which sure can be like a thousand years can't it).

(Mal 3:5 KJV) And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
. . . . . Now I ain't worried about the sorcerer part, and I've never been the boss of anybody, but all the rest of it (and yeah, I guess you could say I've tried to do magical things, which is one definition of a sorcerer, for that matter), I mean I walked by a guy just a couple of weeks ago with bucks in my pocket that I might should have given to him, 'cause he sure did strike me as a stranger. "There is no secret thing, which shall not be made known" or something like that. This world is a mess and I'd like to help straighten it out 'cause like I've been saying, it could be a big ol' fire and it might be a really beautiful rapture and I'm watching and praying. (I loved the Russian preacher from St. Petersburg who told his sister church here in Mississippi to "pray with one hand and work with the other" ['cause I'm sure he'd had a earful of how much we here in Amerika were praying for them there in Russia].)

(Mal 3:15 KJV) And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
. . . . . I've been reading this for a lot of years (thought it was in Isaiah) and wondering when the proud rich happy people would learn the truth of things, and have the tables turned, just like Jesus and the money-changers. And please remember 'wickedness' translates 'lawlessness' and Jesus said all the law which is based in the Old Testament.

(Mal 4:1 KJV) For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
. . . . . Here's another of those table-turning verses.

(Acts 3:21 KJV) Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
. . . . . "The times of restitution of all things" might be upon us; so (according to the first part of the verse) if these are those times, Jesus might be back. (wowowow) That's the only place this word (restitution) appears in the New Testament. That, to me and others, places added significance to it.
. . . . . Notice also, "the times of refreshing" in verse 19. I remember (for some reason I can remember where the car was on the highway even the second time I read Isaiah 28:12 [notice verse 16 too] that day which is the only place the Hebrew word for refreshing appears in the Bible).

(Acts 3:23 KJV) And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.
. . . . . I'm including this verse because verse 21 tells us "all His holy prophets since the world began" have spoken of the restitution of all things, and anybody who says Jesus wasn't wanting the world's wealth to be redistributed is straining at gnats and swallowing camels.

May 9  *************************************

. . . . . Well, i'm back again. I'm still making a few notes from time to time and not catching up on 'em, but I've also been doing a good bit of meditating on stuff and feel like I might can put a little perspective on stuff with the last few notes I've made.  Here they are:

. . . . . The major division I see in the world is, I suppose, the old 'us and them' one; everybody feels like they're part of one group or another, however small, and naturally everybody's group is the good group, the group that's on target about right and wrong so to speak. And sure, there aren't many people who only feel like they belong to one group, but this is my web site and I like things simple.

. . . . .  A common denominator of these differences just might be fear of consequences. So I'm gonna kinda cover the definitions of the twenty-four words used in the Bible (in nine categories) for "sin" and remind everybody that although I'm sure guilty of breaking the letter of the law in all of them, I'm also the only one I'm sure is forgiven <smile>.

May 16  *********************************

. . . . . Well, maybe I'll get back to those twenty-four words some day. Maybe not. Wanted to mention how I felt that those few months starting off 1997 were so incredible in that it was like without effort; I like to say inspired but can relate to anyone saying I was obsessed. Still haven't felt anything like that in my sporadic efforts to expound on those first pages. That's why I keep trying to quit.

. . . . . I did want to mention that the anger of blacks should be considered in the light of their grasping that our system is real wrong, and that they collectively are surely among the oppressed, just because they have so many obstacles (again collectively) in getting from have-not to have. And there's the problem again:  God's way is to take from those who have too much and give to those who don't have enough; man's way is different. (2014 note:  straight from Lao Tsu, slightly revised)

          I'm definitely not preaching world government; I'm trying to talk (true) common sense: if we could just agree to feed and shelter everyone we might could prevail. Acknowledging (or just say pretending) that there are angels among us in human form makes some of the harder questions easier, since we know for example there'll always be severely retarded humans among us who might even not be still if we agreed to try it. If I've been a channel for God's love in some weird situations, probably anybody can be. Get my drift? I'm just babbling the same stuff over using slightly different words.

          Maybe I can stop now, with this quote from an e-mail I got recently: Reporter:  Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization? Mahatma G:  I think it would be a good idea.

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